5.2 PTR: New Heirlooms, Future Item Upgrades, Ghostcrawler Tweets

Ghostcrawler has been using Twitter instead of the forums for a while, and recently he's been addressing a lot of class balance issues, as well as talking about the PTR.

The biggest announcement he's recently made was that new gear in 5.2 won't have Item Upgrade options, such as Throne of Thunder raid gear. Instead, Item Upgrades may be options for patches that do not have new raid content.

Ghostcrawler

Is Item Upgrade going to be available for 5.2 Gear (e.g. Tyrannical PVP and Throne of Thunder). Thoughts on how well it works?ATM, we are planning on no upgrading during 5.2. Too early to evaluate how well it worked. I'm sure it will need tweaking. I would think having higher ilevel would help a lot in the new content and will compete for a time with newer gear. still no answer if VP will be reset/downgraded like in the past on 5.2's release?I don't believe we have answered that yet. (View Source)

Hi. Is valor pts upgrade system implemented only for in-between tiers period or also for new tiers one like in 5.2. ? Thanks.Our plan at this moment is upgrading only for patches without a new raid / PvP tier. That design could change. (View Source)

5.2 New and Upgraded Heirlooms

Patch 5.2 has both new shield and offhand heirlooms, as well as upgraded versions of existing heirlooms that give experience until 85, instead of 80.

As for upgraded heirlooms, these new heirlooms will not replace the old heirlooms. Instead, players can upgrade their old heirlooms by turning them in along with their initial Justice Points price. These heirlooms have the same stats as the old heirlooms, but will be able to be used from 1-85, instead of 1-80.

These were able to be upgraded at <Justice Heirlooms> vendors, Larisse Pembraux and Zulna. No word on costs from Argent Tournament or Darkmoon Faire NPCs yet.

Ghostcrawler's Class and Design Tweets

Ghostcrawler

Dungeons and Valor Points

what happened to 7 dungeon runs per week for valor, can we have this back instead of having to daily for 80 valor?Old model: 7 per week but 8th useless. New model, 1 a day then as many as you want for less.this is so misleading. It was seven a week then you hit cap. It's now ~20 a week until you reach cap. Stop pretending.You mean the cap is bigger? I understand what you're saying now. We felt larger cap critical to allow options. Else, 1 way wins.You know what won for me? I stopped caring about capping, it's so ridiculously out of reach for my 8 hours of play.The system works better if players play at their own pace. We just need some kind of cap or someone would break everything.Players want to play at their own pace but won't get as much reward from their own pace. They get frustrated.Here's the kicker: that pace is different for different players. How to not alienate those who want to play more vs. less?With trully optional content. And not "optional" content that gives huge benefits to other activities.That approach doesn't work either. Players consider optional content optional and skip over it (not all of course). (View Original)

The problem is the pace that players used to play to be able to keep up is not even close to current requirementUsed to from when? Cataclysm didn't ask players to play much... and they didn't. :( The catch is that people may realize they aren't using the gym much and cancel their membership. We want you to play WoW.so? Blizzard makes most $$ running the game like a gym-less time spent using membership=better, right? I'm playing much less now with boring dailies and always-out-of-reach valor cap. Feels pointless, not fun.What if you just earned as much valor as you felt like and didn't target the cap. What if the cap was 20,000? (View Original)

Rested Bonus applying to VP seems like a reasonable compromise. Could replace valor of ancientsWe've considered that (and rep) but the game has no concept ATM of rest for anything beyond XP. (View Original)

DPS

Are encounters still designed *without* dual-spec in mind, as it was once claimed ? (Think 1-tank fights)Yes, but during that time we've also seen the community shift from thinking a 10% dps delta is unacceptable to a 5% or 1%.10/5% is indeed unacceptable. 1% delta is fine. And need to switch specs for single vs. multi-target encounters is same bs.I suspect 1% is unachievable on actual diverse encounters so long as specs use different buttons. (View Original)

Healing

have you thought about adding some sort of mouseover heal setting, not just macroing everything?Yes, we've considered it as an option, since it's a popular one.

Resto Druids got hurt so bad with the increased Battle Fatigue. Troubling you still think them on par with RS/Pala. Explain?If everyone's healing goes down by the same percentage, how does one healer get hurt more? Relative healing should stay the same. (View Original)

Justify why there are no nerfs on hunters & shadow priests in 5.2 please?Assuming you mean PvP, we're not hearing much on hunters since Stampede fix. Shadow is a concern. Worried they're under the radar. (View Original)

what is the intent behind mage and lock blanket removal but hunter still retains blanket? I really don`t see a distinction …We did nerf . We were worried that mage/lock still bring a lot to the table & don't want hunter to just be "I burst!" (View Original)

All the raiding mages were Fire BC Fire was best in every situation. Now we see more Frost and Arcane, but still lots of Fire.the Player like to play Fire, but why you dont want it, you nerfed it to the ground on singelataget?Last I looked, Fire is 90 to 100K on a single target fight like Feng. That's to the ground these days?try looking at the average players not the top raiders. avg player is at 40-60And isn't Arcane around there as well? Or maybe a better question: what is not to the ground for normal players? Hard to say for Frost. Sample size is low, and my guess is most raiding mages are Fire/Arcane. (View Original)

We always try to buff as a first resort. Sometime that's not possible because it would drive too many other changes.Lots of respect for the challenges your team faces. Seemed like Scorch weaving was a fun mistake? Why not harness it?Can you explain why you thought it was fun? It just seems like a way to get around Arcane's intended mana management. So under that logic if you found a way to keep your crit rate at 100% and we fixed it, that is scorning you? You found a way around the design intent, which is that mana is precious and 6 stacks hard to maintain. When have you ever told us the design intent of Arcane? We've been begging you to tell us for expansions now.Feel like we've discussed it a lot. Try to use AB without running OOM. It's a nuker that uses a healer resource model.<blink> <blink> and how exactly is scorch weaving circumventing THAT stated design concept?!Scorch was free in 5.1 so it felt mandatory and allowed more AB stacks, which made Arcane damage too high. (View Original)

Please comment on the abomination of a spell, Ring of PeaceWe think monks need pretty drastic buffs to get them into PvP. Player not used to seeing them. If RoP's too powerful we can adjust. (View Original)

Whats your standing on resto shamans after silence nerf. They seem to be more vunerable than most healing classes like pallysWe think Resto shaman are less overpowered now. Paladins probably still too good. The Q was about silence so I assume PvP. Holy paladins are where they should be in PvE. (View Original)

Could also be a case of dmg being too high , but Disc is too far behind before all that is factored in. Thanks for your time.We would like to see more Disc priests. Just want to make the right changes and not break anything. (View Original)

I dont think +4% damage boost on Sanguinary Vein can be enough to compete against assassinationWhat % do you think Combat is behind Assassination? (You can't just compare Raidbots or WoL because of sampling bias.) Say X is 2% higher DPS than Y. All the best skilled and geared players go X, further inflating X to maybe 10% higher than Y. Players sometimes view logs as how much DPS everyone *can* do. That's not what logs measure. That's the bias. (View Original)

Rogues are doing well on almost every fight. The problem we're trying to solve is promoting diversity not giving out more DPS.Which is a bit conflicting isnt it? Cleave gave combat some diversity, but tunnled the way players speced in a senseYeah, that's what we're saying. Ideally "I might do a little more damage as Combat on this fight," not "I must have a Combat spec." (View Original)

Now i have a question...i thought hit and run was removed and replaced with cloak and dagger...didnt see CnD on PtrIt sounds like the patch notes (Cloak and Dagger) are more up to date that the PTR (Hit and Run). That happens. (View Original)

Do you think there might be just a bit too much passive damage going on with rogues now? That's what personally turned me off.To use FPS terms, the high auto+poison damage keeps rogues feeling like an SMG instead of a shotgun. Maybe time for a change?if you're going to use fps terms don't you think a rogue should be more like a sniper rather than a shotgun ;)Snipers have very low ROF though. They also tend to be complained about in FPS for the same reasons - uncounterable burst. (View Original)

us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/7593399468 … PLEASE read this, I would love to hear your argument against this terribly designed glyph (Charred Glyph)…The goal wasn't to create a great glyph, it was to remove a glyph that was so great it was mandatory. (View Original)

New Blood Horror is utter Shit, no one in their right mind will take it. And seriously why nerf destro dps? It's already crapBlood Horror competes with def talents and needs to be defensive. Grimoire of Sacrifice competes with other demon talents and can't be the only choice.Grimoire of Sacrifice for Destro is all about Havoc. For single target, talents compete fine.We agree Havoc plays a big part of it. (View Original)

Warlocks are supposed to use pets and all pets are supposed to be viable. That's the problem, not .If warlocks are supposed to use pets and are instead sacrificing them, where is the disconnect in design?It probably means Grimoire of Sacrifice is too good or Grimoire of Supremacy isn't good enough. :)Well now you realize this, any chance on buffing sGrimoire of Supremacy so it's viable and we can use pets again?Planned for 5.2. Last I looked, 90% of Affliction and Destro had Grimoire of Sacrifice in PvE and 90% of Destro had Grimoire of Sacrifice in PvP. That doesn't feel like a choice. Destro is good on some fights. Regardless, having a mandatory talent prop up a low dps spec isn't good design. (View Original)

Is there any plans to make bloodsurge and Wild Strike useful in 5.2 instead of being a last resort move.When would you not use Wild Strike? If you mean Colossus Smash, Raging Blow and BT are better, that doesn't make Bloodsurge bad.I think he means that outside of Colossus Smash, it is better to have dead GCDs and pool rage(for Heroic Strike spam in Colossus Smash) than use Wild Strike.Could make Colossus Smash not affect Heroic Strike, but then a lot of warriors have some relearning to do.I think the solution is in changing Wild Strike, not in breaking something that works well (heroic strike).But what would you change Wild Strike to? Ultimately it's a priority question of whether it beats HS, Raging Blow etc.I thought the intent was to just beat Heroic Strike (like Slam does) except in rage bleed-offs? Does it not accomplish that?That is the intent, but it sounds like Fury just ignores the BS proc often, which is unfortunate. It is low dmg and awkward to use. Making it proc a stronger free Wild Strike might be too similar to new Overpower though. Wild Strike is always going to be low priority compared to all else but we can try to make Bloodsurge worth using. (View Original)

Haste typically provides resources for melee. Warriors get good rage now and we'd hate to nerf that just to make haste good.The problem for Arms is every stat provides very little benefit. Haste + mastery are abysmal. Crit + str decent.Primary stats (Str) are largely irrelevant because they are on your gear anyway. Crit is very good, which makes other stats less so.Haste being undesirable is fine at current rage generation. This is why you reforge. Not every stat should be awesomeAgree in theory, but haste is really bad for warriors. (View Original)

Have u guys considered leavin Shockwave as is minus damage. But restricting avatar, reck, and or banner from stackin together?We have considered it. It takes a lot of unfun management to cycle your cooldowns though. Why not just cut 1 and recude CDs? (View Original)

Comments

Comment by shadowhack

on Tue, 08 Jan 2013 15:39:49 -0600

not sure I like the cost of upgrading my BoA for an extra 5 levels that is no longer hard to get without the use of BoAs. I'd be inclined to upgrade my BoAs if the cost was old BoA + 500JP, not old BoA + a few thousand JP, sure JP is easy to farm but I don't want to farm JP for that long to upgrade all my BoAs for 5 extra levels.

Comment by Chaosinfintium

on Tue, 08 Jan 2013 15:45:38 -0600

As for upgraded heirlooms, these new heirlooms will not replace the old heirlooms. Instead, players can upgrade their old heirlooms by turning them in along with their initial Justice Points price.

I say this on behalf of all players, --- MOVE BLIZZ! Come on! What's that noise about really we have to pay the price OF the heirlooms to upgrade them! That's Bull. Just to upgrade all the gear on my Monk alone it's going to cost about About 35k jp if I count 3 weapons.

Comment by thaedris20

on Tue, 08 Jan 2013 15:56:19 -0600

i think it should be full price for buying the heirloom straight up and for those who have the non upgraded should at least only pay half of the cost at least

Comment by stiffan

on Tue, 08 Jan 2013 16:05:20 -0600

that seem cool....i dont use my JP anyway i been cap for a less 2 month now

Comment by jprich

on Tue, 08 Jan 2013 16:12:47 -0600

Im a little sad that the heirlooms dont go to 90.When heirlooms came out they went to max level.=(

Comment by Hoffgrizel

on Tue, 08 Jan 2013 16:25:48 -0600

Considering how much some players have to work so hard in order to farm up their JP, It's not a smart move to require them to re-farm the massive amounts of JP's in order to upgrade their pre-owned Heirloom gear. Some players have full set's of Heirlooms for all Classes and in rolling new toon's that they might want to max out their 11 count per server, Hm... or on other servers before a 25$ server x-fer?....

This would mean 5+ sets that they would have to farm up JP for. now if you take the time to do the math for that concept. You are going to have a players that are going to tell you Blizz to take your concept and insert it into an orifice that you most likely will not be able too.

I would strongly suggest you reconsider this opting before you once again shoot yourself in the foot! Mr... ACTA-Bliz! @.@

Comment by tonydizzle

on Tue, 08 Jan 2013 16:26:44 -0600

So, I'm confused... what if you don't have the old heirloom yet? Do you now have to buy the old one then upgrade it to the new one? That's pretty crappy if it's the case. The other option isn't good either, being the new ones just cost the old prices, in which all our heirlooms we have now are worthless. I doubt that second case though, the purchasing model suggests you need to buy both... Blizz is not doing very well with heirlooms, they aren't listening to their customer base at all... I don't understand how they haven't been able to figure out a way to make them actually account-wide now with the pet and mounts. That's what we want, not spending twice the JP for 5 extra levels...

Comment by felhunter

on Tue, 08 Jan 2013 16:48:02 -0600

the heirloom upgrade cost is a bit over the top.

basically you paying 7k JP if you dnt have a 2hander yet and you want your alt too use it till 85.now if it was 500 or 1000 as a max that would be acceptable. but too double the amount needed.

well its PTR so it can and should change

Comment by FinalMasterM

on Tue, 08 Jan 2013 17:10:41 -0600

I don't think the cost of re-buying my heirlooms for another 5 levels is really worth it. Getting to 85 isn't all that hard (even from level 1) without heirlooms. It's sad to see another JP sinker when JP isn't all that easy to come by already.

Comment by FinalMasterM

on Tue, 08 Jan 2013 17:13:32 -0600

Im a little sad that the heirlooms dont go to 90.When heirlooms came out they went to max level.=(

A degree if ilevel is required to do dungeons, having too many of them that far, imo, is harmful when they should be replacing them levels before with actual gear and NOT stack random pieces of gear in their bags to boost their ilevel.

Comment by lonewolfe31705

on Tue, 08 Jan 2013 17:39:04 -0600

Really think the cost of the BoA gear isn't worth the cost just for 5 levels. Come on Blizz...use that head for something besides growing hair.

Also...rant below...

Am I really going to have to make a twitter account just to keep on top of wow updates? This is starting to get ridiculous....read the forums, like us on facebook, follow us on twitter, circle us on G+....whats next...pay per view to watch our livestream on TV/twitch/whateveR?

Comment by Arraya

on Tue, 08 Jan 2013 18:38:02 -0600

They should edit the heirlooms we have now to scale to 85 instead of making them be upgrade-able, I'm not paying what I spent just to upgrade them to be used on 5 levels! If not, just make us able to exchange them for the new ones.

Comment by BahamutBBob

on Tue, 08 Jan 2013 18:54:00 -0600

So what's the point of them stressing "VP is for upgrading gear in MoP!" and then not letting us upgrade everything in MoP?

Also, it doesn't matter since my rogue is sitting at 85 now, but if I wanted to upgrade my Heartseekers, I would lose the enchants on them. Why not just upgrade the damn item so it levels to 85 automatically, and piss people off less?

IMO, Blizzard has made a lot of bad choices in MoP. I didn't play through TBC or Wrath, but I did play through Vanilla and Cata. The game is a joke now compared to what it was before 2.0. It's also a joke now compared to what it was between 4.0 and 5.0.

Comment by Ruhig

on Tue, 08 Jan 2013 20:19:03 -0600

I'll need to start grinding some more JPs. I'll absolutely upgrade my trinkets & ring; likely also the magic-users set. Maybe the leather DPS set, as I have a monk & a rogue I need to really get out of the 30s. My druid will not upgrade, though. I'm going to take my time in Mount Hyjal. I mean, druid, right? I'm going to max out his rep there.

Not quite sure if I'll upgrade the plate stuff, though. I'll buy the off-hand because I've been wanting to roll a Holy Paladin, just to try it out, but not sure I want to fully invest in it.

Comment by TEMP002

on Tue, 08 Jan 2013 21:54:55 -0600

How about those heirlooms that are already enchanted? Do I get my mats back or the enchant "Grandfathered" to the next piece? This is ridiculous move and I honestly dont know how much more alt unfriendly they can make this expansion. Why do they keep creating problems for themselves rather than fixing it the right way the first time? Im fine with paying a small JP fee to upgrade my current heirlooms to the 85 cap, but it shouldnt take my heirloom away and exchange it with another one, nor should I have to pay full "Price" to do so. In all honesty, they should just change them without it being an issue. Theyve changed stats on items before, why is this any different?

Also, this would be a perfect time to make them actually account bound.

Im a little sad that the heirlooms dont go to 90.When heirlooms came out they went to max level.=(

Mostly because of the issues it caused with people wearing them in heroics at 90. I think they also wanted people to actually see the current content without detracting from it and making it seem like just breezing through, as it does while you're leveling. On many of my alts with full heirlooms, I did maybe 15% of a zone before out leveling it. Even without rested 1-60ish just kinda fly by.

Comment by Entropyutd

on Tue, 08 Jan 2013 23:01:37 -0600

I say this on behalf of all players, --- MOVE BLIZZ! Come on! What's that noise about really we have to pay the price OF the heirlooms to upgrade them! That's Bull. Just to upgrade all the gear on my Monk alone it's going to cost about About 35k jp if I count 3 weapons.

Totally a --- move.I'm not only lumbered with full set of most heirlooms and weapons on my main server due to them never actually being truly BoA, They now want to put a needless extortionate tax on upgrading the ones I do have and can use.

Comment by datbunneh

on Wed, 09 Jan 2013 03:10:49 -0600

At the moment I have full mail agility set, full leather agility set, 2 health trinkets, 2 agility maces, agility polearm, almost full strength plate set (no shoulder yet) and strength 2H axe. I still need strength shoulder, 2 mana trinkets, int shoulder, chest and staff - that's 15475 Justice Points or 443 boss kills (35 per boss, my guild is still level 17) or 127 full dungeon runs (~3.5 bosses per dungeon). Should I say that getting JP is a pain in Mists? I guess not, everyone knows that. And now what - I need to spend 2x of total amount of JP just in order to get another 5 levels. Really? I get from level 80 to 85 just in 2 days, while getting all my heirlooms to scale to level 85 would take me about 2 weeks. So please tell me what's the point in that?

Comment by Namennaj

on Wed, 09 Jan 2013 04:08:19 -0600

Also, this would be a perfect time to make them actually account bound.

Totally agree with you here. I am already paying for my subscription. I should not have to pay to get all features. That is the idea why you pay subscription. To get ALL the features of the game.

Comment by Rainemard

on Wed, 09 Jan 2013 09:33:01 -0600

- this is so misleading. It was seven a week then you hit cap. It's now ~20 a week until you reach cap. Stop pretending.- You mean the cap is bigger? I understand what you're saying now. We felt larger cap critical to allow options. Else, 1 way wins.

...Is GC trolling or does he really not understand that people don't WANT to do 20 dungeons to reach Valor cap? Granted, that would be extremely dull-witted and/or obstinate not to take advantage of the other Valor methods, but still... if the goal is to allow options why are players encouraged to log on every day of the week, rather than whenever it's optimal for the player?

- Cataclysm didn't ask players to play much... and they didn't. :( The catch is that people may realize they aren't using the gym much and cancel their membership. We want you to play WoW.

Thing is, it's the fact that we're being asked to go to the gym more often, for the same amount of exercise. 80 Valor isn't too bad for dungeons, but 90 per LFR segment is pitiful. I'm fairly certain people would complain less about the crappy LFR drop rates, if they were getting more Valor.

As far as upgrading Heirlooms go:

If upgraded Heirlooms cost the same for 5 additional levels as it did for 80, no sale. If my Heirlooms lose their enchants when I upgrade them, no sale.If Justice is the only way to upgrade Heirlooms, despite there being multiple ways to obtain the originals, Blizzard is getting a Booterang to the face.

Comment by Reebs

on Wed, 09 Jan 2013 09:35:14 -0600

Keep in mind this is PTR stuff guys, so it is possible they will reduce/tweak the upgrade costs!